Rajasthan High Court Sets Aside Administrative Order Dismissing Plea Of Stenographer Challenging Adverse Remarks In Annual Assessment

The petitioner had received certain adverse remarks in the Annual Performance Assessment Report (“APAR”) against which he had submitted a detailed representation to the Court. However, it was alleged that the representation was dismissed in a cryptic manner without application of mind. Hence, both the order of the reporting officer passing adverse remarks as well as the order of the Court dismissing the representation were challenged in the petition.

The counsel for the petitioner argued that the entire service record of the petitioner was unblemished warranting no such adverse remarks from the reporting officer with whom the petitioner had worked for only 8 months. Furthermore, it was argued that the petitioner had a right to know what decision was taken by the Court on his representation but the same was decided without communicating any reasons in detail.

The Court perused the material on record and observed that none of the contentions raised by the petitioner in the representation were dealt with by the Court while deciding the representation.

The Court referred to the Supreme Court case of Dev Dutt v Union of India in which it was observed that a representation made by a public servant must be decided by the concerned authority in a fair manner and by an authority higher than the one who passed the order against which the representation was filed. Otherwise, there was a likelihood that the representation would be rejected summarily without adequate consideration. This would result in fairness to public servants.

In this background, the Court opined that since the representation was not duly considered by the Court, the matter was remanded back for reconsideration. Accordingly, the petition was partly allowed.

Title: Pooran Chand Gupta v High Court of Judicature for Rajasthan

Citation: 2024 Live Law (Raj) 157